The phrase `messaging environment` will be used herein to refer to computer networks, and one of their primary functions--the transfer of messages such as files, documents and other information from one location to another. Much of the software in use in a computer network is devoted to the task of such message transfer, such as electronic mail (e-mail) services, for example. Electronic mail has developed into one of the easiest and most popular ways to transfer information from one location to another, and from one user to another. Other products, such as group productivity software, are enjoying increasing sales because of their ability to provide even more functionality in the transfer of information among users of a network than provided by a basic e-mail system.
In conventional messaging environments, there exists a class of peripherals, such as scanners and digital copiers, which can be used to indirectly input or print messages from the messaging environment. Scanners are input devices and used to digitize analog images, while digital copiers are both input and output devices, being capable of not only digitizing analog images, but also of outputting a digitized image received from a computer. These devices have become increasingly popular as they provide the ability to transform analog data into a format suitable for transmission or modification in a computing environment. Scanners are conventionally not network aware, and communicate with the messaging environment indirectly via a client computer to which the apparatus is coupled. The client computer, in turn, is coupled to the network and can transfer messages received from a peripheral to a location in the messaging environment. Digital copiers, too, are rarely network aware, and in the few available network-aware digital copiers, their ability to communicate with a network is limited to acting solely as an output device, such as a printer.
Scanners and digital copiers conventionally have been coupled directly to a client computer, because the initial use of such devices was to input a graphic image, such as a drawing or photograph, and manipulate the image on a particular computer. Such manipulation and use was accomplished by fairly specialized personnel, and was not an ability needed by many people. Thus, there was little need to couple such devices directly to a network. As computing environments have become graphically oriented, the ability to use graphic images has become widespread and fairly easy through the use of graphics software. Even conventional word processors today provide fairly sophisticated image manipulation tools which were found only in very specialized graphics programs a few years ago. Yet, devices such as scanners and digital copiers continue to require client computers to communicate with the network environment, and have no ability to route messages to and from the messaging environment.
Another apparatus which has become almost indispensable for its ability to transmit data to remote locations is the facsimile processor. Facsimile capabilities are frequently implemented in computer environments through the use of a facsimile board and facsimile software, which handle sending a message from within the messaging environment over a telephone line to a remote facsimile processor, or receiving a message from a remote facsimile processor and storing the message on a disk drive. Unlike conventional headerless apparatus, such as scanners and digital copiers, all facsimile processors must be capable of generating a communications header for use in message transmission with another facsimile processor. The existence of such a communication header in facsimile processors has been used as a mechanism for implementing rudimentary message routing capabilities in a facsimile processor. U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,743 to Hochman et al., the entirety of which is hereby incorporated herein, discloses the use of the TSI field from a communications header to specify an intended recipient of the message. The receiving facsimile machine, through the use of facsimile software running on a network server, extracts a user identifier from the TSI field, and stores the message in a directory associated with the user on a network server. The user can then run specialized software from their network-attached computer to read the message.
Given the popularity of headerless apparatus such as scanners and digital copiers, it would be beneficial if such apparatus could be integrated with a messaging environment such that a message could be directly routed from a scanner to an application within the messaging environment, or a message could be routed from a location within the messaging environment directly to a digital copier, for example. However, unlike facsimile processors, such apparatus lack the ability to create a communications header. Moreover, like conventional facsimile processors, no mechanism exists for comprehensive control of a messaging environment such as directing messages into and from the messaging environment, from the apparatus itself. If such devices could be integrated into the messaging environment, advanced routing capabilities allowing flexible control of messages into and from the messaging environment could be achieved, and the use of a client computer would not be necessary, decreasing the overall costs of such peripherals while increasing their functionality and overall integration into the messaging environment.